A HUMAN life, filled with the presence and
power of God, is one of God's choicest gifts to His church and to the world.

Things which are unseen and eternal seem, to the carnal man, distant and
indistinct, while what is seen and temporal is vivid and real. Practically,
any object in nature that can be seen or felt is thus more real and actual to
most men than the Living God. Every man who walks with God, and finds Him a
present Help in every time of need; who puts His promises to the practical
proof and verifies them in actual experience; every believer who with the key
of faith unlocks God's mysteries, and with the key of prayer unlocks God's
treasuries, thus furnishes to the race a demonstration and an illustration of
the fact that "He is, and is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him."

George Mueller was such an argument and example incarnated in human flesh.
Here was a man of like passions as we are and tempted in all points like as
we are, but who believed God and was established by believing; who prayed
earnestly that he might live a life and do a work which should be a
convincing proof that God hears prayer and that it is safe to trust Him at
all times; and who has furnished just such a witness as he desired. Like
Enoch, he truly walked with God, and had abundant testimony borne to him that
he pleased God. And when on the tenth day of March, 1898, it was told us of
George Mueller that "he was not," we knew that "God had taken him": it seemed
more like a translation than like death.

To those who are familiar with his long life-story, and, most of all, to
those who intimately knew him and felt the power of personal contact with
him, he was one of God's ripest saints and himself a living proof that a life
of faith is possible; that God may be known, communed with, found, and may
become a conscious companion in the daily life. George Mueller proved for
himself and for all others who will receive his witness that, to those who
are willing to take God at His word and to yield self to His will, He is a
the same yesterday and today and forever": that the days of divine
intervention and deliverance are past only to those with whom the days of
faith and obedience are past-- in a word, that believing prayer works still
the wonders which our fathers told of in the days of old.

The life of this man may best be studied, perhaps, by dividing it into
certain marked periods, into which it naturally falls, when we look at those
leading events and experiences which like punctuation-marks or paragraph
divisions,-- as, for example:

1. From his birth to his new birth or
conversion: 1805-1825.

2. From his conversion to full entrance on his life-work: 1825-35.

3. From this point to the period of his mission tours: 1835-75.

4. From the beginning to the close of these tours: 1875-92.

5. From the close of his tours to his death: 1892-98.

Thus the first period would cover twenty
years; the second, ten ; the third, forty ; the fourth, seventeen; and the
last, six. However thus unequal in length, each formed a sort of epoch,
marked by certain conspicuous and characteristic features which serve to
distinguish it and make its lessons peculiarly important and memorable.

For example, the first period is that of the lost days of sin, in which the
great lesson taught is the bitterness and worthlessness of a disobedient
life. In the second period may be traced the remarkable steps of preparation
for the great work of his life. The third period embraces the actual working
out of the divine mission committed to him. Then for seventeen or eighteen
years we find him bearing in all parts of the earth his world-wide witness to
God; and the last six years were used of God in mellowing and maturing his
Christian character.

During these years he was left in peculiar loneliness, yet this only made him
lean more on the divine companionship, and it was noticeable with those who
brought into most intimate contact with him that he was more than ever before
heavenly-minded, and the beauty of the Lord his God was upon him.

The first period may be passed rapidly by, for it covers only the wasted
years of a sinful and profligate youth and early manhood. It is of interest
mainly as illustrating the sovereignty of that Grace which abounds even to
the chief of sinners. Who can read the story of that score of years and yet
talk of piety as the product of evolution? In his case, instead of evolution,
there was rather a revolution, as marked and complete as ever was
found, perhaps, in the annals of salvation. If Lord George Lyttelton could
account for the conversion of Saul of Tarsus only by supernatural power, what
would he have thought of George Mueller's transformation? Saul had in his
favor a conscience, however misguided, and a morality, however pharisaic.
George Mueller was a flagrant sinner against common honesty and decency, and
his whole early career was a revolt, not against God only, but against his
own moral sense. If Saul was a hardened transgressor, how callous must have
been George Mueller!

He was a native of Prussia, born at Kroppenstaedt, near Halberstadt,
September 27, 1805. Less than five years later his parents removed to
Heimersleben, some four miles off,where his father was made collector of the
excise, again removing about eleven years later to Schoenebeck, near
Magdeburg, where he had obtained another appointment.

George Mueller had no proper parental training. His father's favoritism
toward him was harmful both to himself and to his brother, as in the family
of Jacob, tending to jealousy and estrangement. Money was put too freely into
the hands of these boys, hoping that they might learn how to use it and save
it; but the result was, rather, careless and vicious waste, for it became the
source of many childish sins of indulgence. Worse still, when called upon to
render any account of their stewardship, sins of lying and deception were
used to cloak wasteful spending. Young George systematically deceived his
father, either by false entries of what he had received, or by false
statements of what he had spent or had on hand. When his tricks were found
out, the punishment which followed led to no reformation, the only effect
being more ingenious devices of trickery and fraud. Like the Spartan lad,
George Mueller reckoned it no fault to steal, but only to have his theft
found out.

His own brief account of his boyhood shows a very bad boy and he attempts no
disguise. Before he was ten years old he was a habitual thief and an expert
at cheating; even government funds, entrusted to his father, were not safe
from his hands. Suspicion led to the laying of a snare into which he fell: a
sum of money was carefully counted and put where he would find it and have a
chance to steal it. He took it and hid it under his foot in his shoe, but, he
being searched and the money being found, it became clear to whom the various
sums previously missing might be traced.

His father wished him educated for a clergyman, and before he was eleven he
was sent to the cathedral classical school at Halberstadt to be fitted for
the university. That such a lad should be deliberately set apart for such a
sacred office and calling, by a father who knew his moral obliquities and
offences, seems incredible; but, where a state church exists, the ministry of
the Gospel is apt to be treated as a human profession rather than as a divine
vocation, and so the standards of fitness often sink to the low secular
level, and the main object in view becomes the so-called "living," which is,
alas, too frequently independent of holy living.

From this time the lad's studies were mixed up with novel-reading and various
vicious indulgences. Card-playing and even strong drink got hold of him. The
night when his mother lay dying, her boy of fourteen was reeling through the
streets, drunk; and even her death failed to arrest his wicked course or to
arouse his sleeping conscience. And-- as must always be the case when such
solemn reminders make one no better-- he only grew worse.

When he came to the age for confirmation he had to attend the class for
preparatory religious teaching; but this being to him a mere form, and met in
a careless spirit, another false step was taken: sacred things were treated
as common, and so conscience became the more callous. On the very eve of
confirmation and of his first approach to the Lord's Table he was guilty of
gross sins; and on the day previous, when he met the clergyman for the
customary "confession of sin," he planned and practised another shameless
fraud, withholding from him eleven-twelfths of the confirmation fee entrusted
to him by his father.

In such frames of mind and with such habits of life George Mueller, in the
Easter season of 1820, was confirmed and became a communicant. Confirmed,
indeed! but in sin, not only immoral and unregenerate, but so ignorant of the
very rudiments of the Gospel of Christ that he could not have stated to an
inquiring soul the simple terms of the plan of salvation. There was, it is
true about such serious and sacred transactions, a vague solemnity which left
a transient impression and led to shallow resolves to live a better life; but
there was no real sense of sin or of repentance toward God, nor was there any
dependence upon a higher strength: and, without these, efforts at
self-amendment never prove of value or work lasting results.

The story of this wicked boyhood presents but little variety, except that of
sin and crime. It is one long tale of evil-doing and of the sorrow which it
brings. Once,when his money was all recklessly wasted, hunger drove him to
steal a bit of coarse bread from a soldier who was a fellow lodger; and
looking back, long afterward, to that hour of extremity, he exclaimed, "What
a bitter thing is the service of Satan, even in this world!"

On his father's removal to Schoenebeck in 1821 he asked to be sent to the
cathedral school at Magdeburg, inwardly hoping thus to break away from his
sinful snares and vicious companions, and, amid new scenes, find help in
self-reform. He was not, therefore, without at least occasional aspirations
after moral improvement; but again he made the common and fatal mistake of
overlooking the Source of all true betterment. "God was not in all his
thoughts." He found that to leave one place for another was not to leave his
sin behind, for he took himself along.

His father, with a strange fatuity, left him to superintend sundry
alterations in his house at Heimersleben, arranging for him meanwhile to read
classics with the resident clergyman, Rev. Dr. Nagel. Being thus for a time
his own master, temptation opened wide doors before him. He was allowed to
collect dues from his father's debtors, and again he resorted to fraud,
spending large sums of this money and concealing the fact that it had been
paid.

In November, 1821, he went to Magdeburg and to Brunswick, to which latter
place he was drawn by his passion for a young Roman Catholic girl whom he had
met there soon after confirmation. In this absence from home he took one step
after another in the path of wicked indulgence. First of all, by lying to his
tutor he got his consent to his going; then came a week of sin at Magdeburg
and a wasting of his father's means at a costly hotel in Brunswick. His money
being gone, he went to the house of an uncle until he was sent away; then, at
another expensive hotel, he ran up bills until, payment being demanded, he
had to leave his best clothes as a security, barely escaping arrest. Then, at
Wolfenb?tel, he tried the same bold scheme again, until, having nothing for
deposit, he ran off, but this time was caught and sent to jail. This boy of
sixteen was already a liar and thief, swindler and drunkard, accomplished
only in crime, companion of convicted felons and himself in a felon's cell.
This cell, a few days later, a thief shared: and these two held converse as
fellow thieves, relating their adventures to one another, and young Mueller,
that he might not be outdone,invented lying tales of villainy to make himself
out the more famous fellow of the two!

Ten or twelve days passed in this wretched fellowship,until disagreement led
to a sullen silence between them. And so passed away twenty-four dark days,
from December 18, 182l, until the 12th of January ensuing, during all of
which George Mueller was shut up in prison and during part of which he sought
as a favour the company of a thief.

His father learned of his disgrace and sent money to meet his hotel dues and
other "costs" and pay for his return home. Yet such was his persistent
wickedness that, going from a convict's cell to confront his outraged but
indulgent parent, he chose as his companion in travel an avowedly wicked man.
He was severely chastised by his father and felt that he first make some
effort to reinstate himself in his favour. He therefore studied hard and took
pupils in arithmetic and German, French and Latin. This outward reform so
pleased his father that he shortly forgot as well as forgave his evil-doing;
but again it was only the outside of the cup and platter that was made clean:
the secret heart was still desperately wicked and the whole life, as God saw
it, was an abomination.

George Mueller now began to forge what he afterward called "a whole chain of
lies." When his father would no longer consent to his staying at home, he
left, ostensibly for Halle, the university town, to be examined, but really
for Nordhausen to seek entrance into the gymnasium. He avoided Halle because
he dreaded its severe discipline, and foresaw that restraint would be doubly
irksome when constantly meeting young fellows of his acquaintance who, as
students in the university, would have much more freedom than himself. On
returning home he tried to conceal this fraud from his father; but just
before he was to leave again for Nordhausen the truth became known, which
made needful new links in that chain of lies to account for his systematic
disobedience and deception. His father, though angry, permitted him to go to
Nordhausen, where he remained from October, 1822, till Easter, 1825.

During these two and a half years he studied clerics, French, history, etc.,
living with the director of the gymnasium. His conduct so improved that he
rose in favour and was pointed to as an example for the other lads, and
permitted to accompany the master in his walks, to converse with him in
Latin. By this time he was a hard student, rising at four A.M. the year
through, and applying himself to his books till ten at night.

Nevertheless, by his confession, behind all this formal propriety there lay
secret sin and utter alienation from God. His vices induced an illness which
for thirteen weeks kept him in his room. He was not without a religious bent,
which led to the reading of such books as Klopstock's works, but he neither
cared for God's word, nor had he any compunction for trampling upon God's
law. In his library, now numbering about three hundred books, no Bible was
found. Cicero and Horace, Moli?e Voltaire, he knew and valued, but of the
Holy Scriptures he was grossly ignorant, and as indifferent to them as he was
ignorant of them.

Twice a year, according to prevailing custom, he went to the Lord's Supper,
like others who had passed the age of confirmation, and he could not at such
seasons quite avoid religious impressions. When the consecrated bread and
wine touched his lips he would sometimes take an oath to reform, and for a
few days refrain from some open sins; but there was no spiritual life to act
as a force within, and his vows were forgotten almost as soon as made. The
old Satan was too strong for the young Mueller, and, when the mighty passions
of his evil nature were roused, his resolves and endeavours were so powerless
to hold him as were the new cords which bound Samson, to restrain him, when
he awoke from his slumber.

It is hard to believe that this young man of twenty could lie without a blush
and with the air of perfect candor. When dissipation dragged him into the
mire of debt, and his allowance would not help him out, he resorted again to
the most ingenious devices of falsehood. He pretended that the money wasted
in riotous living had been stolen by violence, and, to carry out the
deception he studied the part of an actor. Forcing the locks of his trunk and
guitar-case, he ran into the director's room half dressed and feigning
fright, declaring that he was the victim of a robbery, and excited such pity
that friends made up a purse to cover his supposed losses. Suspicion was,
however, awakened that he had been playing a false part, and he never
regained the master's confidence; and though he had even then no sense of
sin, shame at being detected in such meanness and hypocrisy made him shrink
from ever again facing the director's wife, who, in his long sickness, had
nursed him like a mother.

Such was the man who was not only admitted to honourable standing as a
university student, but accepted as a candidate for holy orders, with
permission to preach in the Lutheran establishment. This student of divinity
knew nothing of God or salvation, and was ignorant even of the gospel plan of
saving grace. He felt the need for a better life, but no godly motives swayed
him. Reformation was a matter purely of expediency: to continue in profligacy
would bring final exposure, and no parish would have him as a pastor. To get
a valuable "cure" and a good "living" he must make attainments in divinity,
pass a good examination, and have at least a decent reputation. Worldly
policy urged him to apply himself on the one hand to his studies and on the
other to self-reform.

Again he met defeat, for he had never yet found the one Source and secret of
all strength. Scarce had he entered Halle before his resolves proved frail as
a spider's web, not able to restrain him from vicious indulgences. He
refrained indeed from street brawls and duelling, because they would curtail
his liberty, but he knew as yet no moral restraints. His money was soon
spent, and he borrowed till he could find no one to lend, and then pawned his
watch and clothes. He could not but be wretched, for it was plain to what a
goal of poverty and misery, dishonour and disgrace, such paths lead. Policy
loudly urged him to abandon his evil-doing, but piety had as yet no voice in
his life. He went so far, however, as to choose for a friend a young man and
former schoolmate, named Beta, whose quiet seriousness might, as he hoped,
steady his own course. But he was leaning on a broken reed, for Beta was
himself a backslider. Again he was taken ill. God made him to "possess the
iniquities of his youth." After some weeks he was better, and once more his
conduct took on the semblance of improvement.

The true mainspring of all well-regulated lives was still lacking, and sin
soon broke out in unholy indulgence. George Mueller was an adept at the
ingenuity of vice. What he had left he pawned to get money, and with Beta and
two others went on a four days' pleasure-drive, and then planned a longer
tour in the Alps. Barriers were in the way, for both money and passports were
lacking; but fertility of invention swept all such barriers away. Forged
letters, purporting to be from their parents, brought passports for the
party, and books, put in pawn, secured money. Forty-three days were spent in
travel, mostly afoot; and during this tour George Mueller, holding, like
Judas, the common purse, proved, like him, a thief, for he managed to make
his companions pay one third of his own expenses.

The party were back in Halle before the end of September, and George Mueller
went home to spend the rest of his vacation. To account plausibly to his
father for the use of his allowance a new chain of lies was readily devised.
So soon and so easily were all his good resolves again broken.

When once more in Halle, he little knew that the time had come when he was to
become a new man in Christ Jesus. He was to find God, and that discovery was
to turn into a new channel the whole current of his life.

The sin and misery of these twenty years would not have been reluctantly
chronicled but to make the more clear that his conversion was a supernatural
work, inexplicable without God. There was certainly nothing in himself to
"evolve" such a result, nor was there anything in his "environment." In that
university town there were no natural forces that could bring about a
revolution in character and conduct such as he experienced. Twelve hundred
and sixty students there gathered, and nine hundred of them were divinity
students, yet even of the latter number, though all were permitted to preach,
not one hundredth part, he says, actually "feared the Lord." Formalism
displaced pure and undefiled religion, and with many of them immorality and
infidelity were cloaked behind a profession of piety. Surely such a man, with
such surroundings, could undergo no radical change of character and life
without the intervention of some mighty power from without and from above!
What this force was, and how it wrought upon him and in him, we are now to
see.